BJP agenda sans NRC will affect indigenous people: Assam forum

Guwahati: Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM), a forum against illegal immigrants, has observed that with the omission of any reference to the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the BJP’s Lok Sabha election manifesto, the aspirations of the indigenous people in Assam and Northeast of protecting their identity has taken a hit.

“The net result of dropping NRC from the agenda is that the people of Assam are worse off after conducting a mass agitation where 855 persons were martyred,” PVM convenor and Supreme Court advocate Upamanyu Hazarika said on Tuesday.

Hazarika further observed that if the Assam Agitation had not taken place, the cut-off date for granting citizenship to migrants from erstwhile Pakistan would have been July 19, 1948, and not March 25, 1971, as per the Assam Accord.